Field
Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to a mobile device monitoring predefined regions and detecting when the mobile device enters and exits those predefined regions.
Description of the Related Art
The cell phone market is transitioning from ‘feature’ phones to ‘smart’ phones. Feature phones primarily allow phone calls and text messages. Smart mobile devices (phones, tables, etc.) allow the functionality of a laptop computer in a smaller mobile device. Smart mobile devices can connect to the Internet either over the cell phone network or by using Wi-Fi connectivity. Smart mobile devices can run small software applications known as apps. Smart mobile devices can be aware of the device location through the use of a Global Positioning System (GPS) chip, cell phone tower triangulation, or a Wi-Fi network location mapping.
Certain applications track the location of the smart mobile device through the use of some or all of the methodologies available to the device. Navigation software applications are an example of one class of applications that track the location of the mobile device with high precision in order to be able to provide detailed turn-by-turn navigation instructions. However, navigation applications also consume a corresponding large amount of the available battery power.
While smart mobile devices can receive emails, containing rich media information, such email is not specific to the location of the mobile device.
As part of the Location Services provided by the mobile operating system on the smart mobile device, the devices are able to identify predefined regions and detect when a mobile device enters or exits those regions. A region is a geographic area defined by a circular area of a specified radius defined around a geographic point (e.g., latitude, longitude), such as a point of interest to the user. The region may be small (on the order of 150 meters) or large (on the order of tens of miles, or larger). The Location Service on the mobile device may be programmed with Regions to monitor. The Location Service on the mobile device has a recommended minimum size for region to be monitored (on the order of 150 meters). Only regions with this radius or larger can be accurately monitored by the Location Service. After establishing regions to monitor, the mobile operating system (OS) will notify a corresponding location based mobile application on the mobile device when the mobile device has entered or exited a region that the application has designated for the mobile OS to monitor. This process is known, e.g., as Region Monitoring.
As with all uses of the mobile OS Location Services, region monitoring can result in significant battery usage. Often, an OS of the mobile device will limit the number of simultaneous regions monitored by the mobile device.